How GIS Has Changed Our World

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Preventive oral health care is essential for one’s overall health. For children, it is important to address oral health needs earlier in life to prevent oral health issues from forming and progressing into adulthood. Below is a map of the percentage of children in Georgia with financial access to preventive dental care. This map comes from an article written by Cao, Gentili, Griffin, Griffin & Serban (2017) titled, “Disparities in Preventive Dental Care Among Children in Georgia.”

The authors of the article state that financial access is, “the percentage of children who either are eligible for public insurance or have the ability to afford dental care through commercial insurance or ability to pay out-of-pocket,” (Cao et al., 2017). Although there are plenty of children who are eligible to receive public funding for preventive dental care in GA, only 27.9% of the 4,123 dentists in GA who offer preventive dental services to children accept public insurance, (Cao et al., 2017).

What are your thoughts? What does financial access to preventive dental care mean to you? Is this an accurate representation of financial access? I invite you to read more of the article on the CDC’s website, here.

Today’s mapshows the rate of self reported pesticide related illness by state for the year of 2014 per 100,000 person. From the map we can see some states had rates ranging as low as 0.00 to 0.27 indicated by the yellow shading. In contrast some states, such as Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, New York, Kansas and Virginia had rates as high as 0.87 to 2.56 indicated by the dark blue shading. However, its important to note that because these are self-reported rates the date is subjected to under-reporting. In addition, because these exposures are self-reported both the type of pesticide and the degree of illness associated with the exposure may be mis-classified since the designation by the poison control center for both is based on the description provided by the caller.

According to the CDC farmworkers are among those when are subjected to pesticide exposure. For more information on migrant workers click here.

Check out this mapthat shows the percent of homes built prior to 1950 by county for year 2000. From the data we can see many counties within the Midwestern and Northeastern states had a large percentage, 41.96 to 68.75, of homes built prior to 1950 indicated by the darker shading. In contrast counties within states such as Alaska, Hawaii, and various Western and Southeastern states had a low percentage of homes built prior to 1950 indicated by the yellow/yellowish shading. Although older homes can give the owner a sense of history there are some public health factors one might consider such as radon, lead poisoning, mold and asbestos. For instance according to the CDC homes built prior to 1978 are likely to have a lead-based pain and that chance increases the older the home is.

Research by two Iowa State University economists shows there are not enough high-skilled jobs in Iowa to keep qualified people from leaving the state. Researchers found Iowa was competitive in jobs requiring a high school degrees, but lacking in having skilled workers for jobs requiring a bachelors degree. Check out this interesting map which depicts the domestic migration patter of highly educated workers. For more information click here.

Check out this mapwhich shows the percent of people living with HIV who were uninsured by county for the year of 2014 ages 13 and older. From the map we can see that a large portion of counties within Hawaii, the north east, and some midwest states had some of the lowest percentages of people with HIV who where uninsured indicated by the yellow shading. In contrast states in the south and west had some of the highest percentages of people living with HIV who were uninsured. We can see Alaska and Texas were predominantly shaded dark, indicating percentages ranging as high as 19 to 39.

Check out this map that shows the percent of people living with HIV who are living in poverty by county for the year of 2014. From the map we can see that a large portion of counties in the southern and western states have a higher percentage of people with HIV living in poverty, indicated by the dark shading. We can also see that Alaska has counties shaded dark, such as Yukon-Koyukuk Census area, indicating the percentage of those living in poverty range from 22.61 to 47.40.